Liquid silicate (waterglass) is very alkaline with a pH of 14 and is known to rapidly gelate and form polymers when the pH is reduced to values below 10.7. The polymerization products have excellent qualities as a binder, for example metasilicate in alkaline detergents. Being among the most environmentally friendly industrial chemicals and fairly inexpensive, silicates are used in several applications to agglomerate materials. This invention makes use of a system by which silicate polymerisation takes place at low pH ranges and provides a colour indicator for the pH range at which the polymerisation occurs at the most convenient speed for practical purposes.
Wood is normally vulnerable to aging due to environmental influences, rot through micro-organisms and consumption by certain insects. However, there are examples of wooden structures that according to paleo-botany have been preserved for million of years through fossilization processes with silicates. Modern wood preservation involves chemicals that have fungicidal or insecticidal properties. Such wood-treatment products often have unwanted effects on human health and/or the environment, e.g. chromium-arsenic based wood treatment products, organo-phosphate and organo-chlorine insecticides. With inspiration from natural fossilation the present invention also presents a process that reinforces wood by coating and binding the wood-fibres with silicates and thereby helps preserve wood.